Sir Everard will open and read Mr.Parmalee's little _billet-doux_ the instant he is alone." But just here Sybilla was mistaken.

Sir Everard did not open the tempting twisted note.

He glanced at it once as it lay on the table, but he made no attempt to take it.
"She will show it to me when she awakes," he said, with compressed lips, "and then I will have this impertinent Yankee kicked from the house." He sat beside her, watching her while she slept, with a face quite colorless between conflicting love and torturing doubt.
Nearly an hour passed before Harriet awoke.

The great dark eyes opened in wide surprise at sight of that pale, intense face bending so devotedly over her.
"You here, Everard ?" she said.

"How long have I been asleep?
How long have you been here ?" "Over an hour, Harrie." "So long?
I had no idea of going asleep when I lay down; but my head ached with a dull, hopeless pain, and--What is that ?" She had caught sight of the note lying on the table.
"You will scarcely believe it, but that stranger--that American artist--has had the impertinence to address that note to you.